POEM OF THE DAY

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*New Year’s Eve*

*D.H.Lawrence*

There are only two things now,

The great black night scooped out

And this fire-glow.

This fire-glow, the core,

And we the two ripe pips

That are held in store.

Listen, the darkness rings

As it circulates round our fire.

Take off your things.

Your shoulders, your bruised throat!

Your breasts, your nakedness!

This fiery coat!

As the darkness flickers and dips,

As the fireflight falls and leaps

From your feet to your lips!

*This poem is in the public domain. Published in Poem-a-Day on December 29, 2024, by the Academy of American Poets*

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POEM OF THE DAY

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*Passing of the Old Year*

*Mary Weston Fordham*

Ah! the year is slowly dying,

And the wind in tree-top sighing,

   Chant his requiem.

Thick and fast the leaves are falling,

High in air wild birds are calling,

   Nature’s solemn hymn.

In the deep, dark forest lingers,

Imprints of his icy fingers,

   Chill, and dark, and cold.

And the little streamlets flowing,

Wintry sun so softly glowing,

   Through the maple’s gold.

So, Old Year, gird on your armor,

Let not age, nor fear, nor favor,

   Hurry you along.

List! the farewell echoes pealing,

List! the midnight hour is stealing,

   Hark! thy dying song.

Say, Old Year, ere yet your death knell

Rings from out yon distant church bell,

   Say, what have you done?

Tell of hearts you’ve sadly broken,

Tell of love dead and unspoken,

   Ere your course is run.

Tell the mother who doth languish,

O’er her graves in silent anguish,

   She will see again,

Blooming bright “beyond the river,”

Living on for aye an ever,

   Every bright-eyed gem.

Ah! full many a spirit weary,

You have wooed from paths so dreary,

   Wafted them above.

Now they say Old Year, we bless thee

Raise thy head, we would caress thee

   For this home of love.

On thy brow lies many a furrow,

And thy eyes tell many a sorrow

   Hath its shadow cast.

But thy task is almost ended,

Soon the path which thou hast wended,

   Will be called the “Past.”

Then, old dying year we hold thee,

To our hearts we fondly fold thee,

   Ere the midnight bell.

Soon thy race will now be ended,

With Eternity be blended,

   So, Old Year, farewell.

*This poem is in the public domain. Published in Poem-a-Day on December 28, 2024, by the Academy of American Poets.*

*about this poem*

“Passing of the Old Year” appears in the one poetry volume, Magnolia Leaves (Tuskegee Institute, 1897), written by Mary Weston Fordham. In the book’s introduction, Booker T. Washington wrote, on December 6, 1897: “I give my cordial endorsement to this little ‘Book of Poems,’ because I believe it will do its part to awaken the Muse of Poetry which I am sure slumbers in very many of the Sons and Daughters of the Race of which the Author of this work is a representative. The Negro’s right to be considered worthy of recognition in the field of poetic effort is not now gainsaid as formerly, and each succeeding effort but emphasizes his right to just consideration. The hope, I have, is, that this Volume of ‘Poems’ may fall among the critical and intelligent, who will accord the just meed of praise or of censure, to the end that further effort may be stimulated, no matter what the verdict. The readers I trust will find as much to praise and admire as have I done.”

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POEM OF THE DAY

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*A Casualty List*

*by Mary Carolyn Davies*

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There was always waiting in our mother’s eyes,

Anxiety and wonder and surmise,

Through the long days, and in the longer, slow,

Still afternoons, that seemed to never go,

And in the evening, when she used to sit

And listen to our casual talk, and knit.

And when the day was dark and rainy, and

Not fit to be abroad in, she would stand

Beside the window, and peer out and shiver,

As small sleek raindrops joined to make a river

That rushed, tempestuous, down the window pane,

And say, “I wonder what they do in rain?

Is it wet there in the trenches, do you think?”

And she would wonder if he had his ink

And razor blades and toothpaste that she sent;

And if he read much in his Testament,

Or clean forgot, some mornings, as boys will.

But always the one wonder in her eyes

Was, “Is he living, living, living, still

Alive and gay? Or lying dead somewhere

Out on the ground, and will they find him there?”

She closed her lids each night upon that look

Of waiting, as a hand might close a book

But never change the words that were within.

And when the morning noises would begin

A new day, and a young sun touched the skies,

Again she woke with waiting in her eyes.

But that is over now. She does not read

The lists of casualties, since that one came

A week or two ago. There is no need.

She’s making sweaters now for other men

And knitting just as carefully as then.

There is no change, except that as she plies

Her needles, swift and rhythmic as before,

There is no waiting in our mother’s eyes,

Anxiety or wonder any more.

*This poem is in the public domain. Published in Poem-a-Day on December 7, 2024, by the Academy of American Poets.*

*about this poem*

“A Casualty List” was published in Mary Carolyn Davies’s poetry collection The Drums in Our Street: A Book of War Poems (Macmillan, 1918), the same year World War I ended. 

She dedicated this volume to her three brothers—

“Sergeant A. H. Davies: Company E, 4th Battalion, 20th Engineers, A.E.F.;

 Sergeant S. L. Davies: Company D, 6th Battalion, 20th Engineers, A.E.F.;

 Sergeant L. L. Davies: Base Hospital 46, A.E.F., Formerly Corporal, Seventieth Battery Canadian Field Artillery (discharged for wounds).” 

In “The American Literature of War: The Civil War, World War I, and World War II,” David Lundberg of Tufts University wrote, the “[American authors’] reaction to the war, and indeed the reaction of most writers and intellectuals of the twenties was part of a larger cultural rebellion that had begun before 1914. This ‘innocent rebellion,’ as Henry May has described it in The End of American Innocence (1959), began as a rejection of the smug optimism and confining moral standards of the nineteenth century. […] *Eventually the war came to be a metaphor for all that was wrong with western civilization.*”

POEM OF THE DAY

THE YELLOW CORN

by Charles G. Eastman

Come, boys, sing!—                                Sing of the yellow corn,                            Sing, boys, sing,                                Sing of the yellow corn! He springeth up from the fallow soil, With the blade so green and tall, And he payeth well the reaper’s toil, When the husks in the autumn fall.               The pointed leaves,                   And the golden ear,               The rustling sheaves,                   In the ripened year—                             Sing, boys, sing!                                Sing of the yellow corn,                             Sing, boys, sing,                                Sing of the yellow corn.   He drinks the rain in the summer long, And he loves the streams that run, And he sends the stalk so stout and strong, To bask in the summer sun.               The pointed leaves,                    And the golden ear,               The rustling sheaves,                    In the ripened year—                               Sing, boys, sing!                                   Sing of the yellow corn,                               Sing, boys, sing,                                   Sing of the yellow corn.   He loves the dews of the starry night, And the breathing wind that plays With his tassels green, when the mellow light Of the moon on the meadow stays.               The pointed leaves,                    And the golden ear,               The rustling sheaves,                    In the ripened year—                               Sing, boys, sing!                                   Sing of the yellow corn,                               Sing, boys, sing,                                   Sing of the yellow corn.   A glorious thing is the yellow corn, With the blade so green and tall, A blessed thing is the yellow corn, When the husks in the autumn fall.               Then, sing, boys, sing!                   Sing of the yellow corn,               Sing, boys, sing,                   Sing of the yellow corn!                      The pointed leaves,                           And the golden ear,                      The rustling sheaves,                           In the ripened year—                               Come, sing, boys, sing!                                    Sing of the yellow corn,                                Sing, boys, sing,                                    Sing of the yellow corn.

This poem is in the public domain. Published in Poem-a-Day on November 24, 2024, by the Academy of American Poets. Grateful thanks to Poem-a-Day,  Academy of American Poets

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"A Thing Of Beauty (Endymion)" by John Keats

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:

Its loveliness increases; it will never

Pass into nothingness; but still will keep

A bower quiet for us, and a sleep

Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.

Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing

A flowery band to bind us to the earth,

Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth

Of noble natures, of the gloomy days,

Of all the unhealthy and o'er-darkened ways

Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all,

Some shape of beauty moves away the pall

From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon,

Trees old, and young, sprouting a shady boon

For simple sheep; and such are daffodils

With the green world they live in; and clear rills

That for themselves a cooling covert make

'Gainst the hot season; the mid-forest brake,

Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms:

And such too is the grandeur of the dooms

We have imagined for the mighty dead;

All lovely tales that we have heard or read:

An endless fountain of immortal drink,

Pouring unto us from the heaven's brink.

Nor do we merely feel these essences

For one short hour; no, even as the trees

That whisper round a temple become soon

Dear as the temple's self, so does the moon,

The passion poesy, glories infinite,

Haunt us till they become a cheering light

Unto our souls, and bound to us so fast

That, whether there be shine or gloom o'ercast,

They always must be with us, or we die.

Therefore, 'tis with full happiness that I

Will trace the story of Endymion.

The very music of the name has gone

Into my being, and each pleasant scene

Is growing fresh before me as the green

Of our own valleys: so I will begin

Now while I cannot hear the city's din;

Now while the early budders are just new,

And run in mazes of the youngest hue

About old forests; while the willow trails

Its delicate amber; and the dairy pails

Bring home increase of milk. And, as the year

Grows lush in juicy stalks, I'll smoothly steer

My little boat, for many quiet hours,

With streams that deepen freshly into bowers.

Many and many a verse I hope to write,

Before the daisies, vermeil rimmed and white,

Hide in deep herbage; and ere yet the bees

Hum about globes of clover and sweet peas,

I must be near the middle of my story.

O may no wintry season, bare and hoary,

See it half finished: but let Autumn bold,

With universal tinge of sober gold,

Be all about me when I make an end!

And now at once, adventuresome, I send

My herald thought into a wilderness:

There let its trumpet blow, and quickly dress

My uncertain path with green, that I may speed

Easily onward, thorough flowers and weed.

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